Medvedev: Russia irritated by delayed WTO accession

MOSCOW, April 4 -- Russia has prepared itself pretty well for joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), but is annoyed by the "dragged out" process, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.

"Our position on joining the WTO remains the same: Russia is prepared to join the WTO, and it is prepared to join it on non-discriminatory and non-humiliating conditions. We have done all that has to be done to this end," the Interfax news agency quoted Medvedev as saying at a joint press conference, after meeting Chilean President Michelle Bachelet at the Kremlin.

"Nevertheless, this process has been dragged out, and we are annoyed by this. We believe all the procedures should have been completed long ago," he said.

The Russian president called on the relevant parties to complete Russia's WTO accession faster. "The matter is ultimately about covering the rest of the way quickly and approaching the final result," he said.

"This is a reciprocal process, and what counts most is that it should not be turned into an endless story," he said.

Chilean President Bachelet also voiced support for Russia's WTO membership at the conference. "He (Medvedev) knows that Chile supports Russia's accession to the WTO," she said.

A joint statement by Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama following their London summit promised to instruct their governments to complete Russia's accession to WTO as soon as possible.

Various issues including enforcement of copyright laws and meat exports remain stumbling blocks of the accession talks which began in 1993. Russia is the world's largest economy still outside the WTO.